Search this site
Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
"You're fired, but you better keep selling our products"
Let's get this straight. Last year, American International Group's board effectively canned its chairman and CEO, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg -- the man responsible for building the company into an insurance industry behemoth over the past generation -- in order to...
More Spitzer mischief
When one door for a misguided investigation closes for Aspiring Governor Eliot Spitzer, he just opens another one. Although misdirected, no one can say that Mr. Spitzer is not persistent. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein of the Southern...
Hank fights back
With the criminal investigation of American Insurance Group, Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway unit General Re heating up earlier this week, former AIG chairman and CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg made his first detailed public comments regarding the propaganda campaign that New...
The high price of cooperation
Berkshire Hathaway's decision to roll over and provide government investigators anything they want in connection with the multiple investigations into the transactions between Berkshire General Reinsurance Corp. and American International Group, Inc. is starting to look like a very costly...
The increasing criminalization of business
This Wall Street Journal ($) article examines the increasing criminalization of business in the post-Enron era, which has been a frequent topic on this blog. Although the article does a reasonably good job of summarizing the troubling trend, it comes...
Is the NY Times really reading this blog?
I speculated facetiously awhile back that some NY Times editors are reading this blog. Now, I'm really starting to wonder. First, over the weekend, the NY Times ran this less than flattering article on the Lord of Regulation's recent defeat...
General Re continues to serve up sacrificial lambs
As predicted in this earlier post, this NY Times article reports on the guilty plea of Richard Napier -- a senior vice president at General Re in 2000 and 2001 when the questionable transaction with American International Group occurred --...
Former Gen Re exec fingers others
As anticipated in this post from earlier this week, John Houldsworth, a former high-level executive of the Cologne Re Dublin unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Reinsurance Corp., implicated four other senior General Re executives while pleading guilty on Thursday...
The Lord of Regulation comments on the Anderson decision
In an interview yesterday with Wall Street Journal columnist Alan Murray, New York AG ("Attorney General" or "Aspiring Governor," take your pick) Eliot Spitzer observed that he agreed with the recent Supreme Court decision in Arthur Andersen LLP v. United...
The noose tightens -- General Re exec cops plea
John Houldsworth, an executive at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Reinsurance Corp. unit, has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of criminal conspiracy in connection with the company's nontraditional insurance finance transactions with American International Group Inc. Although Mr. Houldsworth...
More on AIG's Enronesque experience
American International Group Inc. released its long-delayed annual report yesterday and, as expected, reported a 2.7% hit to the company's net worth along with cautionary notes about the longer-term cost that AIG is confronting as it deals with multiple governmental...
Andersen wins at the Supreme Court
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of the defunct Arthur Andersen accounting firm for destroying documents relating to its client, Enron Corp., before Enron collapsed into chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2001. Here are the previous...
The Lord sues AIG and Greenberg
New York AG ("Attorney General" or "Aspiring Governor," take your pick) Eliot Spitzer and the New York State Insurance Department filed a civil lawsuit today against American International Group, Inc and its two former top executives -- former CEO Maurice...
The Chronicle makes a point about DeLay that it failed to make about Enron
A good, old-fashioned snit between Texas political opponents gave the Houston Chronicle an opportunity this week to make a good point about the rule of law and the integrity of governmental investigations. But in so doing, the Chronicle highlighted its...
First AIG exec cops immunity deal
Joseph H. Umansky, president of AIG Reinsurance Advisors over the past 13 years, became the first senior executive at American International Group Inc. to strike a deal with authorities to offer his testimony in return for immunity from potential charges...
The Oracle's sacrificial lamb?
Berkshire Hathaway used the tried-and-true tactic of a late Friday afternoon news release in an attempt to generate the least amount of notice possible for its most recent quarterly earnings report. However, in doing so, Berkshire raised eyebrows by disclosing...
Daily negative AIG report
Following on Friday's negative report, American International Group Inc. announced late Sunday that it would restate more than four years of financial statements and reduce its net worth by $2.7 billion, which is about 3.3% of AIG's net worth. Although...
It continues to get worse for AIG
Following on this progression of damaging public disclosures over the past several months, American International Group Inc. announced yesterday, as this NY Times article reports, that the company has decided to delay for a third time the publication of its...
AIG is sounding more like Enron all the time
As noted earlier here and here, there are several characteristics of the structure of American International Group Inc. that are similar to the structure of Enron Corp. In particular, both companies' business is largely dependent on its customers' trust and,...
AIG's Enronesque experience continues
As noted in this previous post, the reason that Enron crashed was that its business model required that its customers rely on the company's financial integrity and not necessarily on the company's net worth. Accordingly, when Enron's financial integrity came...
For goodness sakes, get on with it
Don't miss this Wall Street Journal ($) editorial today, which addresses the same issue that many of these earlier posts address in regard to the Lord of Regulation's ongoing public flogging of American International Group, Inc. and its former chairman...
The Lord of Regulation chats with the Oracle of Omaha
Let's review the landscape of regulating business for a moment. Various former executives of disgraced and insolvent Enron Corp. are under indictment for using structured finance transactions that independent lawyers and accountants approved to mislead investors regarding Enron's true financial...
Enron-AIG-Berkshire: Regulating earnings management
Don't miss Wall Street Journal ($) columnist Holman Jenkins' Business World piece today. In analyzing the Lord of Regulation's assault on American International Group, Inc. and its long history of being rewarded by the market for its adroit management of...
The Lord of Regulation moves the market
In an effort to calm the harried investors in his latest target, American International Group Inc., New York AG ("Aspiring Governor") the reigning Lord of Regulation Eliot Spitzer announced yesterday that his office expects to reach a civil settlement with...
Is PriceWaterhouseCoopers next?
American International Group Inc.'s public admission this week that it engaged in improper accounting practices has placed AIG's auditor -- PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP -- squarely in the sights of government regulators and plaintiffs' lawyers. Here are the earlier posts on the...
Absolutely Enronesque
In the most stunning in a series of revelations that has rocked the U.S. business community, American International Group Inc. admitted yesterday to numerous and substantial accounting irregularities that could reduce its net worth by over $1.75 billion. Moreover, the...
The Lord of Regulation goes after the Oracle of Omaha
Almost on cue, this Wall Street Journal article($) is reporting that Warren Buffett, the famed investor who is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will be questioned by regulators next month over his involvement in the transaction between Berkshire's...
But what about this issue?
The NY Times Gretchen Morgenson provides this lucid analysis of the deal that prompted American International Group's board to call upon Maurice "Hank" Greenberg to step down as AIG's CEO after a generation of phenomenal wealth building for AIG shareholders....
The Lord of Regulation demands even more from AIG
In what is becoming a typical development in such sagas, this NY Times article reports that the board of financial services giant American International Group Inc. is considering a move to restate its financial statments as a result of suspected...
AIG sacrifices more to the Lord of Regulation
Following on these earlier posts regarding the increasing threat of criminal indictment that is being place on American International Group executives, AIG canned two of its top executives -- CFO Howard I. Smith and VP Christian M. Milton -- after...
Meanwhile, over at AIG and Berkshire . . .
And while the business and legal worlds focus on the implications of the Ebbers conviction, this NY Times article reports on the uneasiness at Berkshire Hathaway as New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer carves another notch in his anti-business...
CEO news
After a couple of years of shareholder unrest over the direction of the Walt Disney Co., the company's board yesterday named veteran Disney insider Robert Iger to replace Michael Eisner as the company's CEO. Mr. Iger was Mr. Eisner's choice...
Feds bear down on Berkshire
On the heels of Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that was silent on such matters, federal and state investigators are focusing on whether a four year old transaction between Berkshire Hathaway's General Reinsurance Corp. and American International...
Spitzer takes dead aim at AIG
New York AG (meaning either "attorney general" or "aspiring governor") Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued subpoenas yesterday to American International Group Inc. in connection with investigations into AIG's earnings management techniques relating to certain types of...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching 'American International Group and Berkshire'. [What is this?]
